Ecology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    Subseafloor microbial activities are central to global biogeochemical cycles, affecting Earth’s surface oxidation, ocean chemistry, and climate. Here the authors review present understanding of subseafloor microbes and their activities, identify research gaps, and recommend approaches to fill those gaps.

    • Steven D’Hondt
    • , Robert Pockalny
    •  & Arthur J. Spivack

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The global ecological predictors of soil priming remain unclear. Here the authors conducted a global survey of soils from 86 global locations using an isotopic approach and find that in more mesic sites with high SOC concentrations, soil priming effects are more likely to be negative.

    • Felipe Bastida
    • , Carlos García
    •  & Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Corals occasionally split their spawning over two consecutive months rather than utilising a single annual event. Here, the authors model coral larval dispersal to show that split spawning may increase the reliability of larval supply to reefs, with implications for recovery from disturbances.

    • Karlo Hock
    • , Christopher Doropoulos
    •  & Peter J. Mumby

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) requires that federal agencies consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) or National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to ensure federal actions do not jeopardize the existence of listed species. Here, the authors analyze recorded from 2000–2017 and investigate the role of NMFS in the consultations.

    • Michael J. Evans
    • , Jacob W. Malcom
    •  & Ya-Wei Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Theory suggests that neutral genetic diversity is determined by census population size, but this is not observed empirically. Here, the authors show that in butterflies, neutral genetic diversity correlates with both body size and chromosome number, suggesting that linked selection is also an important factor.

    • Alexander Mackintosh
    • , Dominik R. Laetsch
    •  & Konrad Lohse

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global average, geographical distribution and temporal variations of the 13C isotopic signature of enteric fermentation emissions are not well understood. Here the authors established a global dataset and show a larger emission increase between the two periods (2002–2006 and 2008–2012) than previous studies.

    • Jinfeng Chang
    • , Shushi Peng
    •  & Philippe Bousquet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stomata enable gas exchange for photosynthesis but close to promote survival during drought. Here, Henry et al. provide evidence for a safety-efficiency trade-off whereby plants with greater stomatal conductance under well-watered conditions are more sensitive to stomatal closure during dehydration.

    • Christian Henry
    • , Grace P. John
    •  & Lawren Sack

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Genetic adaptation and physiological acclimation can potentially buffer species against climate change. Here, the authors perform a long-term warming experiment of Antarctic encrusting communities and show that focal animal species failed to acclimate and lacked genetic variation in tolerance to warming.

    • Melody S. Clark
    • , Leyre Villota Nieva
    •  & Lloyd S. Peck

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The empirical consequences of human explorative strategies are not fully understood. Here the authors find that during undisturbed conditions, more-explorative vessels gained no performance advantage while during a major disturbance event, explorers benefited significantly from less-impacted revenues and were also more likely to continue fishing.

    • Shay O’Farrell
    • , James N. Sanchirico
    •  & Andrew Strelcheck

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Seagrass meadows are important but one of the most threatened ecosystems globally. Here the authors analyse data about extent and density of seagrasses in Europe from 1869 to 2016, and find evidence of recent trend reversal for declining European seagrass meadows.

    • Carmen B. de los Santos
    • , Dorte Krause-Jensen
    •  & Rui Santos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear whether species’ responses to climate change tend to be adaptive or sufficient to keep up with climate change. Here, Radchuk et al. perform a meta-analysis showing that in birds phenology has advanced adaptively in some species, though not all the way to the new optima.

    • Viktoriia Radchuk
    • , Thomas Reed
    •  & Stephanie Kramer-Schadt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sea-level rise threatens coastal mangroves, with global consequences for these important blue carbon sinks. Here the authors analyse four Holocene sediment cores from islands in Florida Bay and find that mangroves that comprised the South Florida coastline 4–3000 years ago rapidly transitioned to estuarine conditions, despite low rates of sea-level rise, and propose that their demise was driven by high climate variability.

    • Miriam C. Jones
    • , G. Lynn Wingard
    •  & Christopher E. Bernhardt

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The flexibility of corals to associate with different bacteria in different environments has not been systematically investigated. Here, the authors study bacterial community dynamics for two coral species and show that bacterial community structure responds to environmental changes in a host-specific manner.

    • Maren Ziegler
    • , Carsten G. B. Grupstra
    •  & Christian R. Voolstra

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Competition dynamics between early Earth photosynthetic microorganisms are unclear. Here, the authors demonstrate that competition for light and nutrients between oxygenic phototrophs and Fe-based photosynthesizers in surface oceans provides a novel ecophysiological mechanism for the protracted oxygenation of Earth’s atmosphere.

    • Kazumi Ozaki
    • , Katharine J. Thompson
    •  & Christopher T. Reinhard

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The Atlantic salmon has suffered widespread population declines over the last century. Here, Lehnert et al. reconstruct changes in effective population size of 172 populations based on genomic linkage information revealing mostly temperature-associated population declines with over 60% of populations in decline since 1975.

    • S. J. Lehnert
    • , T. Kess
    •  & I. R. Bradbury

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The functions of color in fungi are not well characterized. Here, Krah and colleagues investigate the color of mushroom assemblages across Europe and show relationships with climate, nutritional mode (saprotrophic and ectomycorrhizal) and seasonality.

    • Franz-Sebastian Krah
    • , Ulf Büntgen
    •  & Claus Bässler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hypsodonty is a durable pattern of dentition seen in mammals with abrasive diets. Here, Melo and colleagues describe new fossils of the stem-mammal Menadon besairiei from the Late Triassic, which show the convergent evolution of hypsodonty before mammals.

    • Tomaz P. Melo
    • , Ana Maria Ribeiro
    •  & Marina Bento Soares

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The increase in needs for agricultural commodities is projected to outpace the growth of farmland production globally, leading to high pressure on farming systems in the next decades. Here, the authors investigate the future impact of cropland expansion and intensification on agricultural markets and biodiversity, and suggest the need for balancing agricultural production with conservation goals.

    • Florian Zabel
    • , Ruth Delzeit
    •  & Tomáš Václavík

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Risk estimates are important measures for the study and practice of conservation ecology. Here, the authors show that such estimates can be substantially biased, and propose an approach to improve accuracy.

    • Kotaro Ono
    • , Øystein Langangen
    •  & Nils Chr. Stenseth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sensory drive theory predicts that vocal signalling coevolves with auditory sensitivity, but empirical evidence is limited. Here, Charlton et al. show that vocal characteristics and hearing have coevolved in forest mammals, due to constraints imposed by the local signalling environment.

    • Benjamin D. Charlton
    • , Megan A. Owen
    •  & Ronald R. Swaisgood

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Standard DNA-based analyses of microbial communities cannot distinguish between active microbes and dead or dormant cells. Here, Couradeau et al. use BONCAT (bioorthogonal non-canonical amino acid tagging), flow cytometry, and 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to identify active microbial cells in soils.

    • Estelle Couradeau
    • , Joelle Sasse
    •  & Trent R. Northen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multiple drivers maintain unique species assemblages at multiple biogeographic scales. Here, the authors show that the freezing line is a key barrier generating evolutionary differences in temperate and tropical bird communities across a steep elevational gradient in the Himalaya.

    • Alexander E. White
    • , Kushal K. Dey
    •  & Trevor D. Price

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Random walk movement patterns with specific step size distributions are commonly associated with resource search optimization strategies in mobile organisms. Here, the authors show that clonal expansion of beach grasses follows a Lévy-type step size strategy that optimizes early dune building.

    • Valérie C. Reijers
    • , Koen Siteur
    •  & Tjisse van der Heide

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Disease transmission is particularly complex at the human-livestock-wildlife interface. Here the authors sample E. coli from wild birds near households in Nairobi and show that antimicrobial resistance gene diversity is correlated with human and lifestock density, while virulence gene diversity is correlated with avian species richness.

    • J. M. Hassell
    • , M. J. Ward
    •  & E. M. Fèvre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The response of traits and their plasticity to different environments within plant communities is incompletely understood. Here, the authors use field experiments under two climatic conditions to describe the dynamic relationship between ten annual plant species in association with 19 functional traits.

    • Ignacio M. Pérez-Ramos
    • , Luis Matías
    •  & Óscar Godoy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most passerine bird species replace part of their plumage within the first year of life. Here, using data from 4,012 individuals of 19 species, Kiat et al. find that the extent of post-juvenile moult has increased over the past 212 years and this correlated with the global temperature increase in this period.

    • Y. Kiat
    • , Y. Vortman
    •  & N. Sapir

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Developing a predictive understanding of bacterial community responses to environmental change is an ongoing challenge. Here, Isobe et al. reanalyze data on soil microbial responses to nitrogen addition across 5 continents, finding that responses are predictable based on phylogeny.

    • Kazuo Isobe
    • , Steven D. Allison
    •  & Jennifer B. H. Martiny

  • Article
    | Open Access

    We know little about the relative contributions of visual and olfactory senses for wild, frugivorous mammals. Here, the authors show that in capuchin monkeys, frequency of olfactory evaluation of fruits is higher when scent production increases with ripening, and among monkeys with red-green colorblindness.

    • Amanda D. Melin
    • , Omer Nevo
    •  & Shoji Kawamura

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A global warming hiatus occurred during 1998 and 2012 but its effects on phenology are unclear. Here the authors examine the trends in spring and autumn phenology in the northern hemisphere and the effects of the warming hiatus and show that phenology change rate in the northern hemisphere slowed down during the warming hiatus.

    • Xufeng Wang
    • , Jingfeng Xiao
    •  & Rachhpal S. Jassal

  • Review Article
    | Open Access

    The reciprocal interaction between genetic and cultural evolution is well recognised in humans. Here, Whitehead and colleagues review the growing body of evidence that culture is also a major driver of both neutral and adaptive genetic evolution in non-human animals.

    • Hal Whitehead
    • , Kevin N. Laland
    •  & Andrew Whiten

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Soil fungi play essential roles in ecosystems worldwide. Here, the authors sequence and analyze 235 soil samples collected from across the globe, and identify dominant fungal taxa and their associated environmental attributes.

    • Eleonora Egidi
    • , Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo
    •  & Brajesh K. Singh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Multiple aspects of anthropogenic change threaten coral reefs. Here, the authors show that bleaching associated with thermal stress was low when local dredging released moderate amounts of suspended sediments, but high sediment loads coupled with high temperatures had synergistic negative effects on coral survival.

    • Rebecca Fisher
    • , Pia Bessell-Browne
    •  & Ross Jones

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Habitat loss could affect ecological communities in variable ways depending on its structure. Here, the authors show that contiguous rather than random loss is more damaging to the stability of multitrophic communities, regardless of the fraction of mutualistic interactions within the community.

    • Chris McWilliams
    • , Miguel Lurgi
    •  & Daniel Montoya

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Animal diversity, measured in numbers of species, is rapidly being lost to extinction. Here, Cooke et al. show that the diversity of ecological strategies employed by land mammals and birds is also expected to narrow towards small, fecund, insect-eating generalists with fast-paced life histories.

    • Robert S. C. Cooke
    • , Felix Eigenbrod
    •  & Amanda E. Bates

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Garden bird feeding is a prolific human activity that provides a reliable foraging opportunity to wild birds. Here the authors use a 40-year data set to show that large-scale restructuring of garden bird communities and growth in urban bird populations can be linked to changing feeding practices.

    • Kate E. Plummer
    • , Kate Risely
    •  & Gavin M. Siriwardena

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Artisanal fish fences are used for fishing along many tropical coastlines. Here, Exton et al. examine the impact footprint of artisanal fish fences, showing that they are highly non-selective, cause direct harm across the tropical seascape, disrupt ecological connectivity and create social conflict.

    • Dan A. Exton
    • , Gabby N. Ahmadia
    •  & David J. Smith

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Kong et al. use a global trait dataset of 800 plant species to examine the root economics spectrum in relation to root diameter, tissue density and root nitrogen concentration. Nonlinear trait relationships were observed, suggesting allometry-based nonlinearity in root trait relationships.

    • Deliang Kong
    • , Junjian Wang
    •  & Yulong Feng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Fertilization under greenhouse warming conditions is expected to accelerate tree growth and potentially increase the biological storage of CO2. Here the authors analyse ring width measurements from 1768 conifers from the Spanish and Russian mountains and demonstrate that longevity requires slow growth rates at least in mountainous regions.

    • Ulf Büntgen
    • , Paul J. Krusic
    •  & Christian Körner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Environmental stress can affect the outcome of ecological competition. Here, the authors use theory and experiments with a synthetic microbial community to show that a tradeoff between growth rate and competitive ability determines which species prevails when the population faces variable mortality rates.

    • Clare I. Abreu
    • , Jonathan Friedman
    •  & Jeff Gore

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The drivers of coexistence between species with different growth rates are of interest in both ecology and applied microbial science. The authors show, via modelling, that species interactions moderated by consumption or degradation of chemicals can allow coexistence.

    • Lori Niehaus
    • , Ian Boland
    •  & Babak Momeni

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